Joe Benevento grew up in a large, Italian American family in a racially diverse, working-class neighborhood in Queens; a fictionalized version of his times appears in his 2004 YA novel, The Odd Squad, which was a finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Benevento went on to major in Spanish and English at NYU, where he graduated magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, before attaining an MA degree in English at Ohio State and a Ph.D. in English at Michigan State. Since 1983 he has taught American literature (including Latinx and Latin American literature in translation), creative writing and Mystery at Truman State University. He is also the long time poetry editor of the Green Hills Literary Lantern. Benevento's poems, stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in over 300 journals and magazines, including Bilingual Review, Slipstream, Cold Mountain Review, Switchback, South Dakota Review, Prairie Schooner, Italian Americana and Poets & Writers. He has fourteen books to his credit, including Expecting Songbirds: Selected Poems, 1983-2015. Benevento and his wife Carol live in Kirksville, Missouri, where they have raised four children, Maria, Joseph, Claire, and Margaret.